Corporate Solutions

One of the best parts of my job is all about brains. Brains! Picking them and making them bigger. What I mean is I’m constantly collecting insight from our experts (and others we’re friends with who you may know) to produce great content that will help you use video, webcasting and webinars in your communications strategy more effectively.

One of the core values of using multimedia is also efficiency, so with that in mind I thought I’d compile some of our top guides, articles, webinars and videos in one easy-to-use post. There’s a lot of content to digest so this would be a good one to bookmark and work through at your leisure.

As always, if you have a question that we haven’t answered here leave a comment—we’re happy to help.

Guides

• The Marketer’s Guide to Storytelling
• Video Best Practices Guide for Marketers
• The Essential Guide to Optimizing Multimedia for Mobile Audiences
• Multimedia Communications Guide for Marketing
• Multimedia Communications Guide for Fund Marketing
• Multimedia Communications Guide for Public Relations
• Multimedia Communications Guide for Internal Communications

Articles

• How to Record High-Quality Corporate Videos with an iPad
• 4 Mistakes Limiting the Success of Your Webcasts
• 15 Places to Find Remarkable Stories at Your Company
• The End of Boring Webcasts
• 7 Webinar Features Marketers Frequently Forget

Webinars

• How to Attract Customers and Build Community with Storytelling (with Dave Kerpen)
• How to Maintain Control of Your Brand Online (with Jacques Hart)
• How to Produce Awesome Webinars (with Ann Handley)
• How to Fuel Your Video Content Machine (And Keep It Running) (with Ann Handley)

Videos

• How to Give Global Audiences a Better Webcast Experience
• 3 Ways to Make Your Webcast More Engaging
• How to Schedule Your Webinar Promotions
• 3 Ways to Extend the Reach of Your Webcast with Twitter
• 5 Content Creation Tips for Learning & Training Webcasts

What topic should we cover next? Leave a comment and let us know what you want to learn about.

What is the key to increasing assets under management? A high-performing track record certainly helps but it all comes down to one thing: trust.

Trust gets a prospective client to sign on with your firm and trust is what keeps that client loyal through a downturn. Trust is why they shift more assets in your direction and trust is why they refer people to you. So how do you build trust with an increasingly skeptical audience still recovering from the pain of a recession?

More and more fund management companies are using video to build trust by increasing transparency and humanizing the customer experience. They’re using video tell their corporate stories, spotlight performance and engage their client and advisor networks on a more frequent basis.

Whether you’re already using video today or have yet to get started here are seven ways our clients are using video to build trust with their audiences.

Thought leadership
Providing educational content and market commentary allows you to demonstrate the expertise of your management team and positions your company as more than just a service provider. It’s also an excellent way to differentiate your firm in a competitive marketplace—you’re not only interested in your customers’ financial health, you’re also going to make them a more intelligent investor.

Performance and strategy updates
You can let data tell the story of your performance but it’s not a very compelling narrator on its own. If you want investors to lean forward you need to think of these updates as an opportunity to increase transparency into your investment strategy (not to be confused with giving away your secret recipes) and provide context around the variables that impacted results.

Fund profiles
Turn a text-only prospectus into a dynamic presentation your customer will want to watch. Using multimedia to profile a fund will help it stand out amongst a sea of competitive offerings, and help your customers better understand the strategy and objectives of the fund and how it has historically performed.

Portfolio manager interviews
Spotlighting your top talent builds credibility and conveys the personality of your team. A series of interviews with portfolio managers allows them to share their expertise while offering insight to your audience.

Company stories
Every company has compelling stories to tell. Take your customers behind the scenes and tell them about how your firm started, what your leadership is passionate about, how your customers and employees are overcoming challenges and succeeding. Not sure where to find stories? Check out my recent post 15 Places to Find Remarkable Stories at Your Company for ideas—they apply to every type of organization.

Fund performance and awards recognition
How do you promote top performing funds and portfolio managers? Many of our clients are using video to create engaging content around awards recognition. Go beyond just highlighting the data and put your team on camera to share general strategies that led to the results.

Advisor training
If you rely on a network of advisors and wholesalers to promote your products you know that educating this audience and keeping messages top of mind can be challenging. Jackson National Life Distributors has worked with its fund partners and Thomson Reuters to build an online portal featuring a library of on demand video webcasts for each money manager. Luis Gomez, Jackson’s Vice President of Marketing Strategy, explains the advantages: “Video not only helps in simplifying products which are often complex, but it also communicates body language and tone so advisors and wholesalers can really understand how to deliver the message.”

Download our Multimedia Communications Guide for Fund Marketing to get best practices for using video in your communication strategy.

We all strive to be successful and happy. And considering we spend about a third of our lives at work, finding ways to accelerate performance and improve our mood at the office is time well spent. When we think about what impacts our work environment we often focus on people and perks. But the tools you use every day can also have a big impact on your performance and stress level.

Check out my 2-minute video on the advantages of using self service webcasting in your communications program.

Producing more video content is on every marketer’s to-do list, but far fewer are actually hitting the record button. There are plenty of reasons why you may feel paralyzed, from the perception video is cost-prohibitive to being overwhelmed by technical requirements. For me, it was gaining confidence to step in front of the camera and finding a solution that was both portable and budget-friendly. Yes, many of us have an HD-capable smart phone in our pocket but I wanted more professional results. While you may continue to bring in a production partner for your high-profile videos, this guide will help you create your own quality content on a consistent basis—and on a budget.

Last year I began using an iPad-based setup to record best practice videos for our Multimedia Communications blog. Better yet, with this simple system you can do everything yourself—I had no operator on the videos in which I appear. In this post I’ll walk you through everything you need and how it all comes together.

NOTE: If you are recording video today you may be looking to increase the quality of your output, improve the efficiency of your workflow, and/or reduce your costs while still getting professional results—this guide can help you too.

WHAT YOU NEED
(Prices in U.S. dollars)

iPad ($499)
I’m using a third-generation iPad for recording HD (1080p) with the rear-facing camera (the front facing camera has a much lower resolution which has since been upgraded to 720p on the current model). I use a second iPad as a teleprompter. Doubling up isn’t a necessity if your speaker is good off the cuff. I’m not quite there yet so I benefit from having notes in front of me.

iMovie app ($4.99)
If you work on a Mac you may already have the full iMovie program in the iLife suite. As a PC user the app is a powerful editing tool for less than five dollars that allows me to add professional polish such as themes and lower thirds to my videos.

Teleprompt+ app ($14.99 -optional)
If you opt for the dual-iPad setup this is my preferred app for loading and editing text. It looks and works exactly like a teleprompter but without the enormous price tag.

Camera tripod ($70)
Most tripods will do the trick but I chose the Ravelli AGPL3 to ensure I had a sturdy base that minimized vibration and would hold up for years to come.

Tripod mount for iPad ($60)
This device will allow you to mount your iPad securely and record hands-free (see photo). If you go the two-iPad route, you’ll need a pair of tripods and mounts.

Lavalier microphone ($17.17 + $2 for extra batteries)
High-quality audio is a necessity. Your audience may put up with substandard video if your sound is on point, but rarely the opposite. I use the Audio Technica ATR-35S microphone which is inexpensive and produces good results. I highly recommend buying some extra batteries—they’re inexpensive and ensure you won’t get caught with a dead mic in the middle of a shoot.

Microphone adapter ($24.50)
This cable will ensure your lavalier mic plays nice with your iPad. Just plug the male end into the headphone jack on the top of your iPad.

TOTAL COST
Your total cost for the single iPad setup is $677.66 while the dual-iPad version will run you $1,321.65—not bad considering the final product you can produce. Next I’ll show you how it all looks assembled.

THE SETUP
Putting the components together is very intuitive though I suggest watching a YouTube tutorial on the iMovie app if you aren’t familiar with the program—it took me some time to get a handle on the controls. Here’s what the setup looks like with two iPads:

Once you’re done recording you can access the clip in the iMovie app from your Photo Stream and begin editing. When you’re finished, there are a series of export options including saving an edited .mov file back to the Photo Stream (my preference). From there I connect the iPad to my laptop and copy the file locally before uploading it to Multimedia Centre.

NOTE: If you use the teleprompter app be sure the second iPad is positioned slightly higher and behind the one you’re using to record. Also, center it over the recording camera so your subject appears to be looking into the lens. As the camera moves closer to your speaker it will become more obvious they’re reading so test a wide shot first as you determine what looks most natural.

What do you think of this setup? What are you using today to record corporate videos?

In the race for the top spot on Google (and in the minds of prospective customers), your company is not only competing for keywords related to your business, you’re also battling for your own brand terms. Content publishers and online review sites are just two threats to achieving favorable search engine ranking. And while monitoring the online conversations about your brand is critical, you also need to be proactive in executive a content strategy to build your reputation both with your audience and search engines.

In last week’s webinar, How to Maintain Control of Your Brand Online, Roar Media CEO Jacques Hart took us step by step through the process of building an integrated strategy to optimize the visibility of your brand online. For complete highlights, check out 4 Key Takeaways from the How to Maintain Control of Your Brand Online webinar on the MyMediaInfo blog.

Through a convergence of technology advances and a better understanding of the benefits of producing remarkable content, companies are getting very good at webcasting. What started as basic streams in the 90s have evolved into extremely engaging, interactive experiences that are core components of strategies across the enterprise, from lead generation to investor and employee engagement. But despite this progress, I’m seeing mistakes that can have a big impact on the success of your webcast program. To put it simply, money is being left on the table.
As a frequent webcast attendee and a webinar producer for seven years, I’ve observed shortfalls and felt the pain from both perspectives. If you’re doing any of these four things today—well, stop doing them and you’ll see better results.

Not Promoting the On Demand Replay
When it comes to registering for webinars, my eyes are often too big for my schedule.  I’ll RSVP for several that look promising, but often a conflict will arise—a last-minute meeting, a phone call from day care about my son trying to climb a bookcase, a lunch time stroll on a sunny day along the waterfront (we have to enjoy the warm weather while it’s here in Boston). And while my intentions for returning to watch the replay on a Friday afternoon are good, the fact is an event may slip off my radar beneath the next wave of invitations to my inbox.

Odds are only a fraction of your registrants are going to show up when you go live. It’s the most important thing you have to do that day but for many it’s only another block in their calendar. You may only see 30-50% of your registrants attend your live webcast which is fine—the live event is just the first opportunity for your audience to consume your content. So it’s critical that you don’t just make the replay available, you need to actively promote it. You wouldn’t write a white paper or shoot a video and only promote it the first day it launches. Remember, the event is not over when your speakers sign off—in almost every case, it has a shelf life. In fact, on demand results can far exceed your live numbers, especially if you’re extending the invitation to folks across multiple time zones. Don’t let your replay collect dust.

Trying to Cover Too Much Content

We all want attendees to log off feeling informed, entertained and inspired. As you outline your event you may feel pressure to pack your program full of topics and learning objectives. But less is often more. A stacked agenda with multiple speakers may look like you’re adding a lot of value but you may be laying the foundation for a rushed presentation that doesn’t dive deep into any one area. Even worse, you may have to cut your Q&A session short which robs attendees the opportunity to interact with your speakers, the highlight of the event for many people. If you’re planning an hour, consider if 30-40 minutes to go deeper on one or two topics will provide more value for attendees and leave plenty of time for questions.

Not Extending the Discussion to Social Channels

Unless your event is for an internal audience or you want to limit attendance to a targeted group (e.g., a webinar only for customers), social media can have a positive impact throughout the life of your webcast. The first advantage is help spreading the word to followers (both fans of your brand and those of your speakers) during your promotional period. On a recent webinar I produced featuring marketing thought leader Dave Kerpen, I tweeted about the upcoming event and included Dave’s handle (@DaveKerpen) so he could see the mention. He then retweeted it several times to his 36,000 followers. I also created a hashtag (#tellnotsell) which we encouraged attendees to use during the webinar which extended our discussion to their networks, resulting in many people dropping in to see what all the excitement was about. Using a hashtag is also a handy way to return after the event and read feedback from attendees all in one place—it’s a source of insight on what resonated and a simple way to pull together highlights in a follow-up communication or blog post (like this one).

Not Following Up with Attendees

I mentioned the importance of promoting the on demand replay but it’s only one part of a follow-up message you should send to everyone who registered for your webcast. Just like every event is an opportunity to start or nurture a relationship, so too is every email. This follow-up is an opportunity to provide even more value by including complementary resources and an invitation to register for your next event. Send this within a day or two when your webcast is fresh in their mind for the best response rate.

If you’re producing webinars for lead generation, this same technique can be used by sales in their follow-up efforts. While many of your attendees may not be ready to buy now, dripping content after your webcast is an excellent way to open a dialogue, add value and build trust. By demonstrating your commitment to providing ongoing education, you can not only build affinity and position yourself well for consideration, but also accelerate the sales process. A more informed buyer will be more confident in making a purchasing decision.

What other mistakes are you seeing webcast producers making?

Telling stories—just just like content marketing—isn’t new, but from time to time we need to be reminded of the principles—especially when we stray from them. Too many marketers are still delivering messaging devoid of emotion and personality, instead of speaking from the heart. We tell stories every day to our family, friends and colleagues, but when we sign into our company’s email platform or Twitter a transformation occurs. We’re humans speaking to humans, but somehow humanity in marketing has become an exception to the norm.

Earlier this year I received an invitation to an American Marketing Association event in Boston called “Content Marketing: Tell Bigger Stories Without Selling” featuring a panel of content marketing rock stars: Ann Handley (whom I’ve worked with on two webinars, How to Produce Awesome Webinars and How to Fuel Your Video Content Machine), Chris Brogan and Francois Gossieaux.

How would the cast take on content marketing, a topic which has been gang-tackled from seemingly every angle over the past couple of years? Suffice it to say, I walked out of the session with three full pages of notes. Here are 11 top tips for telling bigger stories from the discussion:

On how to staff for content marketing success:

• Handley: “Hire people with different backgrounds who have a passion for content and sharing stories, such as former journalists.”
• Brogan: “You need someone who will talk like your audience reads.”

On being customer-focused and the importance of listening:

• Handley: “What would your marketing look like if your customers signed your paycheck instead of your CEO?”
• Brogan: “Leave your service out of your customer success story. Your audience will make the connection.”
• Gossieaux: “Communications should be reciprocal. We lost the ability to tell stories the same way we would at a barbecue. Today’s marketers need to be re-trained.”

On creating content:

• Brogan: “Content marketing equals weaponized storytelling. Storytelling needs to be strategic and keep moving customers toward purchase.”
• Gossieaux: “How many of you would send a piece of content you created to your best friend? Not many. Create content that is compelling, useful and timed correctly. If it doesn’t lead to any form of transaction, why are you creating it?”
• Brogan: “Find the human element in the story.”
• Gossieaux: “If you replace your company’s name with a competitor’s and your content still makes sense, throw it away.”

On content publishing:

• Handley: “You don’t need to reach the broadest possible audience. Choose channels based on where your audience is.”

On how to build a community:

• Brogan: “Growing a passionate database is a slow process that requires a blog and an email tool. Dabble on the outposts such as your newsletter and social channels. Then bring them back to the mothership—your blog. Get them on your email list and then get them to buy.”

 

What’s the best content marketing advice you’ve received?

Storytelling has long been used by marketers to share ideas and connect on an emotional level with their audiences. It has the power to persuade and inspire people to take action. But what makes a great story and where do you find one?

We’ve teamed with the experts at MarketingProfs to bring you a guide full of tips and best practices you can use today to improve the results of your content marketing and become a more effective storyteller.

Download the guide to learn:

• Why storytelling works
• The anatomy of a great story
• How to find great stories at your company
• Effective ways to share your stories

 

Download your copy of The Marketer’s Guide to Storytelling now.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

11 a.m. NY time – 4 p.m. UK time – 5 p.m. Paris time

Search engine savvy content publishers, online review sites and social media platforms could be leveraging your brand to divert traffic from your site and increase their online profile. What steps can you take to maintain control of your brand message and experience online?

In this complimentary webinar, Jacques Hart, co-founder and CEO of Roar Media, will discuss strategies you can incorporate into your digital PR and marketing plans that optimize the visibility of your brand online. Register now to find out what you need to do to ensure the most prominent story being told about your brand is the one you have curated. You’ll learn:

• How to monitor your brand and prevent it from being hijacked
• Strategies and tactics that content publishers and social media platforms use to take over your brand
• Tips to strengthen your brand online so you’re the one driving the brand experience
• How to manage your online reputation and crisis communications

Have a question for Jacques? Leave a comment and we’ll pass it along for consideration during our webinar. Pre-submitted and live questions will be answered throughout the webinar.

Unable to attend the live webinar? Register and you will receive access to the on-demand version, available after the live event and viewable at your convenience.

On the heels of a near-universal shift across marketing toward content-focused strategies, storytelling is back—or at least back in the spotlight. It never disappeared, of course, but over the decades it’s been shoved aside by corporate-voiced, product-focused, look at us communications. Content marketing has paved the trail back into our hearts as marketers realize that stories are the fuel that keeps the social media and thought leadership engines purring.

But unlike product promotions that relied on a straightforward benefits/features mash-up, storytelling requires characters, conflict and resolution. They may take some effort to uncover, but they’re all around you, you just have to know where to look. And every type of company has stories to tell. No matter what your company does, there is something special—something human—about what you do and how you help your customers.

If you joined our webinar last week, How to Attract Customers and Build Community with Storytelling, you heard Dave Kerpen discuss the business-building power of stories. He shared five sources for stories which I’m sharing below along with ten more. Each of these is a source not just for one story, but a spring from which they can perpetually flow.

1. Your humble beginnings
The story of your company’s origin allows even the largest global brands the opportunity to trace their evolution back to the people who planted their roots.

2. The lives of your leadership
Take us behind the curtain and show us what your executives are passionate about, on and off the field. Offering insight into their interests and activities can go a long way toward humanizing and adding personality to your company. (Did you know I’m an autograph hound who has a blog dedicated to teaching other collectors about the hobby?)

3. Customers who have overcome obstacles
Few types of stories can make a greater impact than celebrating the perseverance and performance of your customers. Shine a light on their success and you will share the spotlight.

4. Employee challenges & achievements
Like customers, your employees are a diverse bunch who have taken paths just as varied to get where they are today in your organization. Whether it’s a financial, family or health-related challenge on their journey to where they are today, sharing it with sensitivity and in the interest of honoring their achievements can be powerful.

5. Community and charity partnerships
We all want to do work that is fulfilling and makes a positive impact on the people around us and in the world. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small group of employees who volunteer for one day at a local charity or if your company has its own global foundation, there are stories to tell about how your organization and employees are participating and giving.

6. How your product is created
As a child of the 80s I watched a lot of Mister Rogers. My favorite episode was the visit to the crayon factory where we saw the wax mixed, colored, formed and collated into neat cartons. From the outside the plant was nondescript and boring, but inside there was magic happening. Show us your magic.

7. Mistakes your company made and what you learned from them
While it may sound odd to suggest calling attention to a poor decision or crisis, your customers understand that when it comes down to it, we’re all human and we make mistakes. That is, if you use these events as opportunities to be transparent about your choices and communicate what you learned from the experience.

8. A day in the life of an employee
Shadowing your top performers across business functions for a day showcases the talent that makes your organization run. People want to do business with companies they know and trust. How do you foster these relationships? Put your best and brightest front and center and show how they help customers every day.

9. What makes your company a great place to work
Showcase your culture and give employees an opportunity to share their experiences in their own words. Culture case study Zappos publishes an annual collection of employee stories, testimonials and pictures in its Culture Book – check it out and then think about how you might use other formats like video to tell those same stories at your company.

10. Your corporate vision
You may have some aspirational statements on your About Us page, but we want to hear from your leadership in their own words. On our webinar, Dave Kerpen said, “If you can tell a good story you can emotionally connect with your audience and get them on your side.” How do you get your stakeholders excited about being a part of the future of your company? Share your passion, share your plan, and tell us how we can get there together.

11. How your customers use your products/services to do amazing things
You don’t have to manufacture space shuttles or vaccines to be an ingredient in a remarkable story. You make cardboard boxes? Your customer is using them to move into their dream home. You make tires? An ambulance speeds safely through a rainstorm to help save a child. You give haircuts? Your customer is going on a first date with his future wife. Listen to your customers and they will tell you the amazing things they’re doing with your products.

12. Education and thought leadership
Storytelling can help you hit someone in the heart but you can also use stories to boost their brains. What is happening in the marketplace that will have an impact on your clients? Which best practices can you develop to help customers improve their performance? Becoming a source for valuable information that makes your community smarter increases loyalty and sets you apart from competitors who just make products. So, how do you uncover what your customers want to learn about? Ask them. You can also answer the frequently asked questions your sales and service teams field every day.

13. Product innovation
Give us a glimpse into your product roadmap or at least take us behind the scenes once something has launched. We want to meet your team, understand why something was developed (e.g., customer feedback, new technology) and why it’s special.

14. Special events
From trade shows to company outings, events are loaded with story ideas. Play journalist and interview attendees about their experience, or capture sound bites around a key theme or question. Conferences are an ideal opportunity to capture testimonials from clients who are attending and interview thought leaders speaking at the event. You’re not just there to set up a booth—try on a new hat.

15. Why your employees love their work
You’ve probably heard the adage “all employees are marketers”. They are your most powerful brand ambassadors and personally, I want to do business with people who love what they do. Even if you think you might not have a workforce who can’t wait until Monday, passion and optimism are infectious and there should be plenty of colleagues who can speak about how they feel their work is important and fulfilling.

Where else have you found stories to tell? Leave a comment below and help us build this list.